Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A)
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Swot Analysis of "Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A)" written by Richard L. Nolan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Shadow Intended facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Health, Internet and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shadow Intended, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shadow Intended operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shadow Intended
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shadow Intended
Strengths Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shadow Intended in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shadow Intended is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High brand equity
– Shadow Intended has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shadow Intended to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Shadow Intended has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Shadow Intended is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shadow Intended digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shadow Intended has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Strong track record of project management
– Shadow Intended is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Shadow Intended is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Shadow Intended in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Shadow Intended is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Shadow Intended is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shadow Intended has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shadow Intended has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shadow Intended in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shadow Intended are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shadow Intended has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shadow Intended 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Shadow Intended, firm in the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shadow Intended products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shadow Intended needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) HBR case study mentions - Shadow Intended takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A), is just above the industry average. Shadow Intended needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A), in the dynamic environment Shadow Intended has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shadow Intended has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shadow Intended has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shadow Intended has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Shadow Intended supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shadow Intended vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Shadow Intended can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shadow Intended has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Shadow Intended to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) case study. Shadow Intended can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Shadow Intended has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shadow Intended can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shadow Intended has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shadow Intended to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Shadow Intended to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shadow Intended to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Shadow Intended to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shadow Intended can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Shadow Intended can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shadow Intended can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shadow Intended operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shadow Intended can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Shadow Intended can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shadow Intended to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shadow Intended can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Technology & Operations segment.
Threats Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shadow Intended can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shadow Intended in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Shadow Intended.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Shadow Intended will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shadow Intended demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A), Shadow Intended may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shadow Intended can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shadow Intended has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shadow Intended needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Shadow Intended in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Shadow Intended needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Shadow Intended business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Environmental challenges
– Shadow Intended needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Shadow Intended can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Working with Your "Shadow Partner" in the Healthcare Industry (A) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Shadow Intended needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.